Spotlight: Products

‘Flipping’ over AMD Teraflop Graphics Card

AMD has launched the FirePro S10000, the industry’s most powerful server graphics card on the market, designed for high-performance computing (HPC) workloads and graphics-intensive applications. The AMD FirePro S10000 is the first professional-grade card to exceed one teraflop of double-precision floating-point performance, helping to ensure optimal efficiency for HPC calculations.

The FirePro S10000 is also the first ultra-high-end card to bring an unprecedented 5.91 teraflops of peak single-precision and 1.48 teraflops of double-precision floating-point calculations. This performance ensures the fastest possible data processing speeds for professionals working with large amounts of information.

Equipped with AMD next-generation Graphics Core Next Architecture, the FirePro S10000 brings high-performance computing and visualization to a variety of disciplines, such as finance, oil exploration, aeronautics, automotive design and engineering, geophysics, life sciences, medicine, and defense.

With two powerful GPUs in one dual-slot card, the FirePro S10000 enables high GPU density in the data center for virtual desktop infrastructure and helps increase overall processing performance. This makes it ideal for IT managers considering GPUs to sustain and facilitate computer- and graphics-intensive workloads.

The S10000 sells for $3599.

Autodesk Offers 90-Day Project Licenses

Freelancers taking on short-term work and artists looking to spruce up their 3D portfolio or finally start that passion project between jobs can now do it faster, more efficiently, and more affordably. In November, Autodesk unveiled 90-day, fixed-term licenses of its Maya and 3ds Max 3D animation software for $199 per license.

Veteran artist Mike Terpstra notes the license could prove ideal for freelancers working on jobs with tight deadlines. “One job required me to quickly conceptualize 3D environments for a client. I wanted to use Maya, but couldn’t rationalize buying a license. So I looked at alternate software, but learning a new package was out of the question because the turnaround was so quick.”

Available in the US and Canada until March 31, 2013, the licenses are not renewable and cannot be upgraded. Fixed-term licenses can be used in production for commercial purposes.